Wednesday, September 10, 2014

ABOUT ANTS AND LENR

I have received a very inspiring comment to my blog paper
of yesterday from AXIL and I have the pleasure to say him a big “thank you” and the
duty to answer to it to tell, where I agree with it and where not.

AXIL wrote:

Though they be little on earth, they are exceedingly
wise.” To what does this refer? Ants (Proverbs 30:24).

Ants appear only twice in the Bible, both times in the
Book of Proverbs being lauded for their wisdom (Proverbs 6:6-8, 30:24-25). Ants
are one of the world’s oldest and most successful living creatures and their
outstanding reputations have not changed much since the time of Solomon.

From the dawn of human civilization, the behavior forged
in the roiling eons long caldron of evolution is recognized as a quintessential
example of the ultimate expression of wisdom; a wisdom born by the witness of
their continuing survival as they thrive over a span of some 150 million years
to become 10% of the worlds biomass.

Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be
wise! (Proverbs 6:6)

Much of ants’ success as a species is attributed to
cooperation and task sharing within the context of unselfish and anonymous
hierarchical social structures. Ants work anonymously without the constrains
imposed by individual ego in teams to collectively move extremely heavy
things, capture prey, and they can when required summon extra workers who
immediately respond without any concern about reputation, or ego gratification,
or being in line for winning a next year's Nobel Prize for their efforts.

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as
working for the Lord, not for men (Colossians 3:23)

Each individual of the colony works in silence for the
common good. Ants can also adapt their duties to overcome any unforeseen
problems. They communicate within an ages old system that is the key to the
success and survival of their society. This method of communication explains
how though single ants are not clever; collectively they are capable of complex
collective tasks. They have no interest in preserving intellectual property;
they have no need for patents, and would never keep their activity secret from
the other members of their colony.

Ants, known for being industrious, are lauded
for their initiative. Ants have no leader—no commander to direct them, no
overseer to inspect their work, no peer reviewers, no ruler to prod them on.
People who act only when commanded do not possess wisdom. Such “swarm
intelligence” is of huge value to science. Science needs less rock stars and
more ants.

One final way in which
ants display wisdom is that though each ant has a distinct function, all work
collectively towards a singular goal.

Now, it is quite
obvious that Axil does not want here to teach us the basics of myrmecology (the
branch of entomology dedicated to ants) - this is an allusion to the LENR
community- he wants to “point out the destructive nature that ego plays
in the LENR ecosystem as all its major players are pitted against each
other in a death dance of destructive competition” He is fighting against
infighting.

And both Axil and
Albert are right, ego, infighting is an ugly obstacle to progress now. However thinking
very calmly, we can see that infight –globally -is much more the effect than
the cause of stagnation. One of the many dark sides of human nature. However this
changes nothing infight is harmful and has to be stopped.

AXIL praises the
unselfishness of ants and re. my blog shows that we have to see “the value of the term
"EGO OUT" for all those looking towards the advancement of LENR.”
Out with the big, bad, dominant egos!

Yes, this is a good
interpretation – however see the Unword Dictionary the name of my blog is in
the realm of DIKW, more precisely IKW:

(ē'gō-out)

1.1. (n.) The quantity of information,
knowledge and wisdom lost by the death of an individual.

The duty of old humans is to decrease their “ego out” in order to
not carry with them in the grave valuable ideas. I was inspired- as told- by
Arthur C. Clarke’s EGOGRAMS that were both egocentric and unselfish.

I am grateful to my friend; he offers me a fine opportunity to
discard fragments of my residual Ego Out.

He is right; we can learn good things from the ants:

First of all a proof of my admiration of the great modern thinkers
coming from management- business, many of them American but Nassim Nicholas Taleb
(presented on this blog by Alain Coetmeur) is also from this category.

I consider Jim Rohn’s ideas, philosophy papers
and quotations a pragmatic treasure. I don’t care for the snobs promoting more
academic high rank philosophers. For ants we have this bright one:

Read it- but I translate it in LENRese for you: ants do 4
things -
ants never quit, they search all the time and if some ways are not accessible
they discover new ways;

- ants know about the priority of the negative, obstacles have to
be removed first;

- ants are obstacle-centric, are born to win because they know
that obstacles will be eventually removed and what they do, they do fast;

- if it is about knowledge, ants follow a policy of
“all-you-possibly-can” policy, life long learning;

Excuse me, Jim for this very personal interpretation of your ideas;
I have learned change management from you!)

He is right- we also can learn what to NOT do from ants

It happens I know a few things about ant, I had studied them in
the garden and I have read all the books I was able to find in those fuzzy
times when I was very young. Re social insects unforgettable are: “The life of
the bee”- by Maurice Meterlick-you know, the Nobelist guy who created the Blue Bird-
the best symbol of happiness and “The Keyword of Crossed Antennae” by a less
famous but also excellent Soviet myrmecologist, I. Halifman. The natural
trend of pedagogy was then to present an idealized view of ants a model for the
people living in the communist society, industrious, individuals sacrificing themselves
for the welfare of the community but Halifman was a scientists so I knew about
the reality in the ants nests. The
idealized form resembles authoritarian fascist or communist societies the
individual is nothing the collective is absolute ruler. I don’t like this. But
the reality is even more richer in Antsland. Have you heard about the
Lomechusa- it is a beetle the most dangerous parasite of the ants nests? When
in 1965 I started to work in the Research Dept. at Borzesti the team leader was
a lady, A.A. who made me a lot of trouble sabotaging my research initiatives,
trying to make me responsible for work accidents, telling lies about me to the
secret police- I knew instantly she is the Lomechusa! (it happens she was a close relative of the General
Manager of the Chemical Works) I survived and moved to a better place.
In the anthill, Lomechusa
strumosa is overly popular in the ant society because it secrets some liquid
which is like a drug for the ants- they become addicted, neglect their own
“children” and many times the ant society degenerates and disappears. Unbelievable
but true.

“In the kingdom of ants, in the depth of the anthill live many
species of insects and parasitic ants that live on the expense of the colony
using incredible tricks and tactics.

Beggars,
parasites, exploiters, flatterers, thieves, eaters of cadavers, salesmen,
assassins, beetles disguised in ants, sellers of molasses, vampire-insects,
good-for-nothings, cleaners, table-companions, symbionts and tenants of many
kinds and species, all walking freely and fearless on the streets and the
markets, following the legions of ants marching on, all being tolerated even by
the most bloodthirsty and aggressive ants, a genuine Court of Miracles…

Two fast conclusions:

-The ant society is more similar to human societies than to an
ideal society

- The wisdom of ants is not human wisdom.

The wisdom of the ice-worm Mesenchytraeus solifugus or the wisdom of
the extremophiles are also non-human form of wisdom. We are a special species. We
have to solve our problems, Nature has only solutions can inspire us but will
not help.

In this case we have to accept that analogies have their limits
and have to be used with care- see please three relevant quotations:

Analogy cannot serve as proof (Louis Pasteur)

Analogies, it is true decide nothing, but they can make one feel
more at home. (Siegmund Freud)

No analogy, no metaphor and not the best rhetoric can resurrect LENR
just solving of the problems and good results.

It can now happen that some offended researchers will call Mary
Yugo a “Lomechusa” because the original one was a professional poisoner
specialized in less functional husbands as later Giulia Tofana or Lucrezia
Borgia and she is poisonous... I disagree; she is not as bad as she seems...

2 comments:

Peter, I agree with much of what is written here. Thank you for posting. And while I appreciate the sentiment, I believe there is a rather obvious gap between what is being preached and what is being practiced -- on almost all sides of the issue. If anyone pays a semblance of attention to the cold fusion message boards, they are littered with all kinds of inane stubbornness as well as loose associations (i.e. based more on qualitative connections than quantitative research) believed/argued to be infallible fact -- a clear sign of egocentric exchange coming from many sides. Conquest/debate is preferred, not open-minded mutual exchange (i.e. Bohmian dialogue). And not to make it personal (i.e. bring ego into the "ego out zone"), but I think the ever mysterious Axil is one of the worst offenders in this regard (i.e. narrow/monolithic insistence on nano-plasmons & "magnetic nano-antennae" to all LENR phenomenon/systems. Something I do find intellectually interesting, but only in the general context of discussing "cooperative modes" across systems). Not that I'm perfect by any means, and while I entertain some rather speculative ideas, there must be some "boundary conditions" to our speculations based on what's been established/replicated by experiment in the systems in question (LENR), how serious we take them based on expert analysis, and a willingness to admit "Yeah, actually, this is just my guess, not fact, so take it or leave it." Even though we are all entitled to our own "reality tunnels", and diversity is of course important to any evolving ecology, everyone has to be more flexible/adaptive in their thinking processes, and less dogmatic because as a society/culture we are a learning/information driven open system. When communication breaks down, the system breaks down. All the best to you. Thank you again for producing consistently thoughtful work, even if we don't always agree.